AuthorTopic: 1 year later....still glad u went to law school? (Read 134709 times)

I love law school, and I love the law. My only regret is that I didn't finish the FIRST time I went to law school. I'm coming off my second time through a 1L curriculum, and I'm so happy to be fulfilling my dream. The first time I went to law school, I had to drop out because of money issues involved with a family crisis. For seven years, the fact that I didn't finish ate at my soul. But now, I'm back to stay.

I know I'm going to be very happy in the legal profession, and I think that this security comes from the fact that I'm 1) very realistic about my job prospects, 2) I'm not in it for the money, and 3) I'm very clear about what it is that I want from my legal education and my legal career. I've been in the work force for 12 years in a very lucrative sales job. While I was making an obscene amount of cash, the problem with those sales jobs is that many are very youth driven - once you get past 40, salary and job security immediately start going downhill. It's assumed that you won't do what it takes for clients because you have a family/life, and frankly, sales organizations want hungry, 23 year old guys to work for them. Plus, there's NO intellectual stimulation. On the other hand, my aunt just retired from an amazing career in law at the age of 93.

So for me, it's really about having some independence and security. No matter what happens to my 401K and social security, I know that I will always be able to work and take care of myself with my degree. Lawyers get BETTER with age, and that experience is what makes or breaks you.

[...] I've been in the Marines, I've worked Construction, and I've worked as a legal assistant at a law firm. I actually like getting up and going to lawschool, [...]

So basically you're a blue collar guy trying to become a white collar one?

Nice sterotyping. Who's to say someone who's "blue collar" can't succeed in law school? Perhaps those who've actually done some manual labor for a living appreciate a desk job more than those who've never appreciated their entitlements.

Isn't there a movie with Tom Cruise in it with this exact plot?

I'm ex-military as well, and I used to work construction; digging trenches for a living will serve to inspire or confine you forever...

1. Law school engenders greed and intellectual myopia.2. Law school breaks people. It is experienced as a trauma, an assault. If law school changes people, it is rarely for the better. 3. Law leads to self-loathing, mental illness and substance abuse.4. Law uses fear and shame as a motivating force.5. With the help of the bar exam, the law school graduate is nothing but a licensed fraud. 6. Law is crowded and full of despair.

- Law professors hide the ball, ignoring their teaching responsibilities, tricking students into thinking the wrong things are important, and not teaching them practical lawyering skills. The law school system allows professors to get away with this active sabotage.

- Law schools shamelessly have raised tuitions to ridiculous levels, while not producing competent attorneys but continuing to funnel students into corporate law firms.

- ABA prevents changes to be made to the system.

- Incompetent and immoral lawyers are the end result of the law school business. So are judges not understanding the law, and law students not caring enough to demand a better education for their money.

- The law school system is set up to keep you in the dark, to trick you, along with 90% of your fellow law students into learning the wrong things and to keep you from becoming a competent lawyer. You don't have any friends out there, so you have to learn it all on your own.

- Law school is meant to crush your spirit and turn you into an immoral (or at least amoral) human being.

- Law professors hide the ball, ignoring their teaching responsibilities, tricking students into thinking the wrong things are important, and not teaching them practical lawyering skills. The law school system allows professors to get away with this active sabotage. The case method is designed to, and generally succeeds, in teaching students how to read a case, how to determine what's important, and how to create favorable rules of law, which is what your clients will expect you to be able to do.- Law schools shamelessly have raised tuitions to ridiculous levels, while not producing competent attorneys but continuing to funnel students into corporate law firms. Welcome to the world of higher education. Private collages and universities are all ridiculously expensive, as are med schools and many grad programs. Are they also in league with the law schools? - ABA prevents changes to be made to the system.How so??- Incompetent and immoral lawyers are the end result of the law school business. So are judges not understanding the law, and law students not caring enough to demand a better education for their money. There are just as many incompetent doctors, human resources directors, and McDonald's employees. Incompetency and immorality are common traits among humanity, and not just the law. As for judges not understanding the law; that has more to do with the fact that many people who can't think their way out of a paper bag happen to be well connected, and get the high power positions - many would argue that our President is the best example of this.- The law school system is set up to keep you in the dark, to trick you, along with 90% of your fellow law students into learning the wrong things and to keep you from becoming a competent lawyer. You don't have any friends out there, so you have to learn it all on your own. Again, incompetency is not a feature of law school; its a feature of life. Many people that fail to learn to read the law and have difficulty learning the "right" things may just not be fit to be lawyers. And the fact that so many people expect everything to be hand fed to them is ridiculous. With a little guidence, if you can't figure things out on your own to some extent, then what does that say about your competency?- Law school is meant to crush your spirit and turn you into an immoral (or at least amoral) human being.Many immoral people walk through the doors of law schools every fall. Law school does not make you immoral. Being able to argue both sides of an issue is not immoral, contrary to what many in the general public believe. The people I know that enjoy the law don't feel like law school "crushed their spirits," but many people who went to law school for the wrong reason and doing enjoy what they're doing feel that way. Gee, I wonder why.

[...] We have chosen to go through law school and have completed the most difficult part of the process. [...]

Law school is a breeze compared to the life of a junior associate. There are many days when the latter vacillate between wanting to cry or wanting to choke someone. There are way too many associates at LARGE law firms cursed out point blank to their faces. The profession is extremely HIGH STRESS. People need to think about what they want to do with this degree, how much work they are capable of handling and what sort of home life they want to have. If they want to raise kids and have a spouse, that's going to be difficult with 200 billable hours a month. It's a trade off ... do you want more time and less money (gov't) or more money and way less time?

Associates at big law firsm put in 60-70 hour weeks. It's not a glamorous thing as many law students may think it is. Every project is rushed. Billable hours are no joke and as an associate you are often treated like chattel. The hiring wars are simply over, there are more attorneys than available jobs. People struggle to pay their loans. The profession is high stress, a lot of work ... there are many attorneys who are depressed and/or suicidal. You go to work at 7:15 a.m. in the morning and it may be 11 p.m. when you get home again.

The firm life isn't for the faint at heart. Smaller firms are often no better than larger firms when it comes to billables and other matters. Many big law firms require 200 hours a month, which for a new attorney may mean 12-14 hour days.

Today's lawyers are "an unhappy lot" and many of them wish they had gone into some other line of work, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has told to an overflow audience in a University of Wyoming meeting.

Ethical standards have declined since an era when people "trusted and respected" lawyers. Job dissatisfaction among lawyers is widespread, profound and growing worse. Studies have shown that lawyers are three times as likely as those in other professions to suffer depression, and that drug dependency, divorce and suicide are also significantly more common among them.

A California study showed lawyers to be profoundly pessimistic about the future of the legal profession and found that only half said they would enter the profession if they had it to do over again. At the 30th anniversary of her Stanford Law School class, O'Connor said "the vast majority" of her previous classmates said in response to a question that they would not do it over again if they had the choice to make.

A win-at-all costs mentality prevails. Many attorneys believe that zealously representing their client means pushing all the rules of ethics and decency to the limit. In contemporary practice, lawyers often speak of their dealings with other lawyers as war, and act accordingly. [...]

[...] We have chosen to go through law school and have completed the most difficult part of the process. [...]

Law school is a breeze compared to the life of a junior associate. There are many days when the latter vacillate between wanting to cry or wanting to choke someone. There are way too many associates at LARGE law firms cursed out point blank to their faces. The profession is extremely HIGH STRESS. People need to think about what they want to do with this degree, how much work they are capable of handling and what sort of home life they want to have. If they want to raise kids and have a spouse, that's going to be difficult with 200 billable hours a month. It's a trade off ... do you want more time and less money (gov't) or more money and way less time?

Associates at big law firsm put in 60-70 hour weeks. It's not a glamorous thing as many law students may think it is. Every project is rushed. Billable hours are no joke and as an associate you are often treated like chattel. The hiring wars are simply over, there are more attorneys than available jobs. People struggle to pay their loans. The profession is high stress, a lot of work ... there are many attorneys who are depressed and/or suicidal. You go to work at 7:15 a.m. in the morning and it may be 11 p.m. when you get home again.

The firm life isn't for the faint at heart. Smaller firms are often no better than larger firms when it comes to billables and other matters. Many big law firms require 200 hours a month, which for a new attorney may mean 12-14 hour days.

Today's lawyers are "an unhappy lot" and many of them wish they had gone into some other line of work, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has told to an overflow audience in a University of Wyoming meeting.

Ethical standards have declined since an era when people "trusted and respected" lawyers. Job dissatisfaction among lawyers is widespread, profound and growing worse. Studies have shown that lawyers are three times as likely as those in other professions to suffer depression, and that drug dependency, divorce and suicide are also significantly more common among them.

A California study showed lawyers to be profoundly pessimistic about the future of the legal profession and found that only half said they would enter the profession if they had it to do over again. At the 30th anniversary of her Stanford Law School class, O'Connor said "the vast majority" of her previous classmates said in response to a question that they would not do it over again if they had the choice to make.

A win-at-all costs mentality prevails. Many attorneys believe that zealously representing their client means pushing all the rules of ethics and decency to the limit. In contemporary practice, lawyers often speak of their dealings with other lawyers as war, and act accordingly. [...]

May I suggest that lawyers don't want competitors when they say that they would never go to study law if they had to make that choice again? In other words, it may just be that they are trying to keep people away from entering the elite club, their profession that rewards its members with lots and lots of money!

May I suggest that lawyers don't want competitors when they say that they would never go to study law if they had to make that choice again? In other words, it may just be that they are trying to keep people away from entering the elite club, their profession that rewards its members with lots and lots of money!

This is interesting in that it was exactly what I said when people were trying to dissuade me from starting law school some time ago ..

Today's lawyers are "an unhappy lot" and many of them wish they had gone into some other line of work, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has told to an overflow audience in a University of Wyoming meeting.

Ethical standards have declined since an era when people "trusted and respected" lawyers. Job dissatisfaction among lawyers is widespread, profound and growing worse. Studies have shown that lawyers are three times as likely as those in other professions to suffer depression, and that drug dependency, divorce and suicide are also significantly more common among them.

A California study showed lawyers to be profoundly pessimistic about the future of the legal profession and found that only half said they would enter the profession if they had it to do over again. At the 30th anniversary of her Stanford Law School class, O'Connor said "the vast majority" of her previous classmates said in response to a question that they would not do it over again if they had the choice to make.

A win-at-all costs mentality prevails. Many attorneys believe that zealously representing their client means pushing all the rules of ethics and decency to the limit. In contemporary practice, lawyers often speak of their dealings with other lawyers as war, and act accordingly.